Graphic energy: Zak Kyes

[imomus]

A new graphic designer has popped into my ken -- or rather, I've pinned a name (Zak Kyes) to a sensibility I was already being influenced by via his exhibition of "critical design", Forms of Inquiry. I saw that show twice over the last year, once at London's Architectural Association (where the Swiss-American Kyes is Art Director), once at Casco in Utrecht.



The reason he's popped up on my radar (with a name this time rather than just a sensibility) is that Ingo Niermann, who's editing my Book of Scotlands, went to London last week to work with Zak on a book he's producing about the Great Pyramid, and also to get a generic look-and-feel (choose typefaces and so on) for the series he's currently putting together for Sternberg -- the series my Scotlands book will be part of. That means that the Scotlands book (which I illustrated last week with a scratch sleeve of my own -- I'm already a bit embarrassed by it) will come out with a design by the man who put the Forms of Inquiry show together. Call me a design nerd, but that makes me very happy indeed.



I'm also happy because Kyes' work really excites my eye. He gets a sort of "funky textbook" look, a sort of harmonious clutter which stays one step ahead of habituation -- in other words, these are designs you want to look at, not just efficient information-packaging or visual shorthand for pre-existing sensibilities.



Kyes manages to combine an appetite for quirky typefaces (see his Flickr photostream for many odd bits of lettering he's observed on his travels) with a controlled balance between simplicity and complexity, order and chaos. There's a taste for cheapness, for exoticism, for the ephemeral-yet-serious energy of '60s and '70s art catalogues, for Fluxus. There's an obvious appetite for intelligent, critical, non-standard printed matter.



I've become a maker of books -- a mediaform I've sometimes found fusty and ugly. It's very important to me to know that the books I've been writing recently will have the graphic energy so apparent on Zak's website, and that this embrace of literary culture won't mean having to turn my back on the best of visual culture: in fact, it'll be right there on the front!

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Comments

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

I'm just commenting because I want to use this icon.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm just commenting because i want to use the word 'canny'

[(Anonymous)]

I'm just commenting.

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

I'm just.

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

just a sex spy?

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

No, more like a rhinestone cowboy. Or a SPACE cowboy. Where have all the cowboys gone?

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

idk, Adam Ant shot them all in shoot outs?

C-C-COMBO BREAKER

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

But I liked your design! You don't give yourself much credit when you design things. Oh, Momus. :(

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

I much prefer your original design to any of Kayes' stuff. There's something about Kayes' stuff that's just over-polished. Like he's on the the acceptable side of experimental.

There's an undeniable crudeness about your designs, but don't feel embarrassed by that; crudeness is also a quality with it's own distinctness. It's a quality a lot of graphic designers are scared of because it's never been popular commercially and many people will just flat out refuse to accept it on the grounds it's "bad design".

Have more faith in your abilities. I'd personally like to see you design your own cover.

[(Anonymous)]

Momus, with all your writing gigs of late, do you now consider yourself more of a writer than a recording artist?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It's all storytelling, really, innit?

tangentially...

[(Anonymous)]

who shot the cover photo for "tender pervert" and whose idea was it? the trees have been blooming in new york recently and i've recalled that image over and over while walking at night.

Re: tangentially...

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Thomi Wroblewski shot the photo in April of 1988 in Hyde Park, but it was my idea. I was deep in my Mishima phase. I remember being anxious thinking the blossom would fall before Thomi was ready to shoot the pictures (it took a week or so set up). And I remember thinking that, at 28, I was already getting wrinkly and that flash at night would be a way to disguise that!

The pose was something I'd seen Picasso doing in a photo. He was impersonating a pagan demon, or perhaps a bull.

Thomi then designed the sleeve. It's one I still like a lot.

Re: tangentially...

[akabe.livejournal.com]

picasso was only copying the guy from AC/DC.
it is a great cover though.

i kind of agree with kuma above this guy's playing rather safe , like he's eaten up all those great design books that were around in the 90s, while what you do is open to inspired mistakes and accidents(auch)and amateur fervor.

Re: tangentially...

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It's a bit soon for you to be praising accidents, isn't it, Alin?

graphic energy

[pay-option07.livejournal.com]

The works also require more energy to experience.
It doesn't just look pretty, but has some definite intent.
Is that what you mean by energy?

Re: graphic energy

[(Anonymous)]

"and also to get a generic look-and-feel (choose typefaces and so on) for the series he's currently putting together for Sternberg"

Not a big criticism but you mean 'establishing a brand' rather than a 'generic look-and-feel' which sounds a bit, well 'generic' suggests something bland / negative even.

Great work by the way. It reminds me of the amazing posters Kippenberger used to design for his shows. I love them - for an artist he really understood design, which is actually quite rare.

http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/features/davis/davis3-10-12.asp

Re: graphic energy

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Ha, well, "establishing a brand" also sounds negative in its way -- too capitalistic!

I suppose I meant they were... designing! I should just have said that.

Nice Kippenberg posters -- he likes blocks of primary colour too!

Re: graphic energy

[(Anonymous)]

Good point - your right graphic designin' sounds better - 'visual identity' sounds less capitalistic.

:-)

Re: graphic energy

[(Anonymous)]

Zak, 'generic' was not used in reference to you. Check this out: http://www.luhringaugustine.com/index.php?mode=past&object_id=109#

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

Ooh, we got some op-art there. Too bad I didn't knew about this guy when I wrote my article on Op art for a school made zine.

[anglerfish96.livejournal.com]

I think your future-annual-retrospective statistical analyses of posts are going to have to include some sort of Bayesian troll and LOL filtering.